Hofstra Time

The Hofstra 50th Anniversary Mets Conference must be getting close, and not just because I finally finished writing my paper for it. Indeed, the event Dana Brand envisioned and cultivated for years is upon us, arriving April 26-28, just three weeks from tomorrow. Registration information[2], along with a (mostly complete) program[3], is now available at the Hofstra Cultural Center site.

My advice? Go register[2] and attend the conference. Spend three days there if you can. Spend part of one day there if that’s all you can do. But for Mets’ sake, take in as much of it as you can.

In my informal capacity as editorial consultant to the conference, I’ve been immersed in a dozen logistical details for the past few months, so it is only now that I’m pulling back and noticing what an incredible lineup Hofstra has put together. It’s 1986/1999/2006 strong. Brothers and sisters, this is the kind of event we as Mets fans always wish would come along…and it has.

I’m so happy to see so many people I know on the program, not because I know them but because I know they know their Mets and they are going to explore so many different aspects of the Mets experience. You’ll likely recognize a whole bunch of names, including a few who wore the uniform and some others who tracked their doings from the press box. Yet to me, the beauty of this conference is how many fans — bloggers and otherwise — are taking part. We the fans represent the filter for what the Mets truly mean. We tell the story to one another every day. Telling it in one concentrated forum, with an audience eager to hear about it and contribute their own stories, with everybody involved taking this thing we call the Mets seriously…that was Dana’s dream. It’s the dream for a lot of us, but Dana had the presence of mind to actually dream it and put it into action.

I’ll be talking this up in a little more detail over the next three weeks, but the time for talking about it has become the time to act. Check out what’s planned[3] and make yourself a part of this once-in-a-lifetime Mets happening.

FYI, proceeds from the conference (above expenses) will go to the Dana Brand Memorial Scholarship Fund[4], one small way in which the conference is dedicated to the memory of the Mets fan who thought it up in the first place.

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